There are few albums that grip you from the moment you press play. And fewer still are the albums that feel like an entirely new encounter – one unlike any you’ve had before. This is one such album.
Wolves from Glaswegian band,
My Latest Novel is an anthology of fairytales, set to music plump with the sort of bravery that makes you glad that sometimes musicians take big risks. The sound is a successful fusion of old and new world. Expect brave harmonies, skilful string sections and tremors from perfect percussion you will feel long after the music has ceased. We had a chat to Gary (vocals, guitar), to find out more about My Latest Novel.
How did you find each other? Chris and I are brothers, so we’ve known each other all our lives. The rest of us we started a band and at the same time Chris and Laura started making music together, so we decided it would be a good idea to join up. We kind of just messed about and had fun with it.
How would you describe both the music and lyric style of MLN?I think the music we make is quite passionate and energetic, I think it’s quite emotive in that sense. I think we try and make music that’s exciting, I think we try and make music that surprises people. A lot of the times we write a song that’s what we’re thinking – we want to remain fresh. If we manage to do that, then I think we’ve succeeded. Lyrically we try and tell stories…elaborate and ideological journey. It’s difficult to define, some people say they’re like fairytales. I think that come from five of us writing the lyrics together as well. There’s a lot of us in the lyrics, individually and also we’ve got quite a strong group mentality. That’s why we called the album
Wolves because we write like a pack.
A tale, much like the track, The Reputation of Ross Francis?Yeh. He is someone from our hometown; he’s an elaborate character. Everyone knows him and everyone knows about him, so we thought we should write a song. Once we got going it was really easy, because it was someone that we all knew and who we thought deserved a song written about him. He’s the person that everything seems to always happen to, he tells elaborate stories – he’s just a character.
With such a unique sound, did you ever worry that you wouldn’t be so well received? Did you ever consider a compromise between the music you want to make and the music the masses want to hear?
Sometimes we think, “are we being to bold here?” but I think we’ve always stuck to our guns. Most of the best bands are the ones that have always stuck to their guns and they challenge themselves and they challenge their audience and challenge what they list to – I think that’s something we’ve done so far and I hope that’s what we always do.
What would you say is your ultimate aim? To continue to improve our song writing. And to keep pushing each other and inspiring each other to produce music that excites people. Because were close - we work together and we do everything together - it’s really important that we maintain the same drive. We really have to push each other.
Wolves, by My Latest Novel is available now at all good music stores through
Etch n Sketch records.